Selling my mum's house for care home fees.

[Yarisalpaca]

My mum is unable to live in her house anymore so it has to be sold to pay her fees at care home. She is in a very good home and happy there, she has dementia.

The house has been on the market for 3 days for £210,000 and already has 2 offers. The best offer is £204,000 which the estate agent thinks is good.

That offer is subject to us agreeing to remove the house from anymore viewings. Is that normal but I find I feel annoyed at this and I haven't a clue why because the house needs to be sold!

How would anyone else feel about this?

The OP hasn't accepted an offer yet unless I have missed something.
If it's only been on the market for 3 days, and there have already been 2 offers, it will obviously sell
I suspect the estate agent wants a quick sale as it's less work for them

Yes I didn't explain myself very well. We haven't accepted the offer yet if we did we would of course take it off the market. Apparently the estate agent had 3 more viewings lined up but there is nothing to say they would offer more. These buyers are renting at the moment so there is no chain which is good.

Mum is already classed as self funding so we already owe back payment which will come from the house sale.

And yes, as a PP said the fees still have to be paid when funds run out. As I understand the County Council will pay fees up to a certain amount and we pay the difference. But she has to have lived there for a year or they can move her to a different home that by then would be very upsetting.

When my mum was wheeled out of her house for the last time she suddenly said "Bye, bye my lovely house" which just about finished me off. It is so sad :(

Does the house have to be sold now?

Don't think you can put it off under the rules now, unless of course you have 1K a week spare with which to pay the care home fees. Councils will offer 'deferred payment' for a few months but it just means you have to pay them those months' fees when the house sale goes through. So renting wouldn't be likely to bring in enough to cover the debt you'd have accumulated.

My mum has been in a care home for eight years. But we haven't sold her house. It's being rented and the rent goes towards her fees (along with the disability benefits she receives). What isn't covered is mounting up as a debt to the local authority. On her death we will have to sell the house to pay that debt (or at least as much of the debt as it will cover - the rest is the council's problem. They'd prefer that we sold it now, but they can't force us to.

My mum was self-funding until a couple of years ago though. It maybe that they're tolerating the debt because they've only taken over for the shorter time

Could you not buy it yourself with a buy to let mortgage? Sell it cheaper to yourself -or husband and Then you get to keep it... and make some money back?

Wrt renting I think most councils will let you do this, but it involves them taking a charge over the property. Debt against it, (whatever shortfall there is between income and care costs) builds up until the house is finally sold. Worth doing if you believe capital growth is there to be gained and are prepared to deal with the headache.

Milly if you sell at undervalue this is highly likely to be picked up by HMRC as well as council with regard to deprivation of assets.

You might want to think that through again @Milly345. There’s so much wrong with it I don’t know where to begin!

Could you not buy it yourself with a buy to let mortgage? Sell it cheaper to yourself -or husband and Then you get to keep it... and make some money back?

I don't think I've ever seen quite so much fraud packed into so few words

I rented out my mums and my aunts houses
I was very fortunate...I got to inherit them both.

I had no problems with my tenants and it slowed down the amount that was paid at the end
My aunts pension and rent covered the fees
My mums not so..but she inherited my aunts estate and as there was cash involved I was able to pay off the amount we weren’t able to meet and keep her house.

Dowser, did you get enough rent to cover the fees?

Oh - X posted.

Yaris..it is sad. I had it with my beloved aunt and mother.

They’d be thrilled that I managed to hang onto their houses though.
If your mum deteriorates badly then she may be eligible for continual health care funding and that is paid for by the nhs
You don’t have to pay a penny

No one unless they’ve been through the pain and trauma of losing a loved one bit by bit can never properly understand.

No, nowhere near. Aunt had a good pension and attendance allowance
Mums pension wasn’t so good and her house wasn’t I. Such a good area do I could only get £175 a month less ..so there was always a shortfall of about £200 a month

Well, if you've had 2 offers in 3 days, and the Estate Agent has 3 more viewers lined up, then I would tell the EA to let the others view, letting them know there are two offers on the table.
After the next 3 viewers have seen it and had chance to make an offer, then you decide whether to take the £204000, or not.
Ask your EAs to let the folk that have offered that amount know that you will be considering all offers fairly, after everyone who is booked in, has had a chance to view.

Once you accept an offer (and it might not necessarily be the highest, if one can move quickly and others are in a chain, for example), then you take it off the market.

It’s a good option op

If you sell you’ll just watch her funds go down, down , down each month
Care home fees aren’t more than £500 a week in our area.

Mum and aunt were in care homes for between 4 and 5 years
Mum paid £95k I to system and aunt £125k

Do you get attendance allowance?
That’s about £80 a week

It has only been 3 days. I wouldn't be closing down the viewings unless you got offered the full amount you wanted.

home fees are paid out of persons income first, then savings until they drop below £23250, then property will need to be sold or rented out if a short fall
DF is in a nursing home home which costs approx £850 per week
He receives nursing care element as not poorly enough for continuing health care, then his state pension, then private pension, as self funding can still claim attendance allowance which all adds up to around £800 a week so he actually pays £50, and will continue to do so till his savings start to run out,
There are also 3rd party top ups which I and DB pay, as DF is not allowed to pay them himself even though he could afford to!
We wouldn’t need much of a rental income to break even, which would mean he can stay indefinitely
As we are happy with the home that’s what we intend
It’s a complicated system

I honestly wouldn’t sell
I would try to hang onto the asset
Sadly mum passed away long before she used up all her funds and the last 8 month as she deteriorated she was fully chc funded anyway

Boris Johnson supposed to be doing something about the unfairness of care home fees

You never know

Does your mum have a big enough income to cover the bulk of the fees, OP?
That might be a way of stretching the rent if you rent out her house..
Generally self funders pay double the fees paid by the local authority for state funded residents. If it was a bit more equal it would be more manageable, but it isn't. Self funders subsidise state funded because the state doesn't have enough money.